Magnitude 6.4 earthquake hits New Zealand

Wellington, April 24: An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale jolted New Zealand on Friday, a media report said.

The quake struck at 3:36pm local time (03:36 GMT) on Friday, with its epicentre about 66km from the South Island town of Kaikoura at a depth of 55km, media reported citing GeoNet.

Geo Net provides real-time monitoring and data collection in New Zealand for rapid response and research into earthquake, volcano, landslide and tsunami hazards.

The earthquake was described as "huge" and "quite solid", leaving some "seasick".

There were no immediate reports of any major damage though Spark has reported a major outage of its mobile network.

Friday's earthquake struck in the same region as a 4.7 tremor that shook office buildings in Wellington the previous day. The quake also struck on a day thousands of people lined the streets of the capital for the Anzac Street Parade.

Anzac Day is observed on 25 April to mark the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. It is one of Australia's most important national occasion. Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.